True Lemon and Dark Chocolate Biscotti

Ready for a little dessert? I admit, I don't make a whole lot of desserts. Probably because if I did, I'd eat all of it and that would not be good for my waistline. Also, I'm very much a cook and not so much a baker. I've never been good at baking pies, but I can pull off cakes and cookies pretty well. For me, it's so much more enjoyable to cook savory food because you can create as you go and you don't really have to measure anything.

So, I usually reserve my baking stints for occasions such as the this. The Virtual Potluck group that I'm a part of teamed up with True Lemon, a really cool company that makes crystallized citrus products that you can use to flavor your water, tea, or even cook with it in place of real citrus juice! The company provided me with the following products to try and play with:

As you can see, they offer all types of products, and not just stuff to cook with. Are you looking to drink more water, but you just hate the taste of it? If so, you may enjoy the Orange or Lemon for your water (all natural, 0 calories), or the Original or Raspberry lemonade mixes (all natural, 5 calories).

I agreed to try these products out because they are all natural and don't use any artificial sweeteners, which I believe are little doses of poison and I refuse to put that into my body. True Citrus products use Rebiana (Stevia), which is a 100% Natural Sweetener from the Stevia plant.

But aside from using these products to keep your calories down by flavoring your water, you can also use the crystallized lemon, lime, and orange to cook or bake with just as you would fresh lemon, lime, or orange. I thought that was pretty inventive, so I was excited to give it a try.

To see how I made the Lemon and Dark Chocolate Biscotti, meet me after the jump!

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees F.

Next, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl to blend. Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar, butter, True Lemon crystallized lemon, and salt in a large bowl to blend. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time.

Add the flour mixture and beat just until blended.

Form the dough into a 13-inch long, 3-inch wide log on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until light golden, about 40 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes.

This is what it looked like after baking for the first time. It definitely looks homemade! Haha...

After it has cooled for 30 minutes, using a sharp serrated knife, cut the log on a diagonal into 1/2 to 3/4-inch-thick slices. Warning: they will crumble sometimes on the edges. Just roll with it. Cut them in half for smaller biscotti (these were kind of huge).

Arrange the biscotti, cut side down, on the baking sheet. Bake the biscotti until they are pale golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer the biscotti to a rack and cool completely. You can see mine
crumbled a bit. Those little bits... why, those are the baker's
snacks!

Here are the biscotti after the second bake.

Melt the chocolate, either by stirring the chocolate in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until the chocolate melts, or just microwave it about a minute at a time, stirring it and returning it to the microwave until it's completely melted. I always use the microwave method because it's super easy.

Dip half of each biscotti into the melted chocolate. Gently shake off the excess chocolate. Place the biscotti on the baking sheet for the chocolate to set. Refrigerate until the chocolate is firm, about 35 minutes. Once the chocolate has hardened, the biscotti is ready to serve!

It's great with a cup of coffee or tea in the morning or as a dessert with a scoop of ice cream.

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